than to his mother.
On the matrimonial question the king's feeling was so strong that he expressed it roughly.

Jeanne d'Albret having said to him one day that the pope would make them wait a long while for the dispensation requested for the marriage, "No, no, my clear aunt," said the king; "I honor you more than I do the pope, and I love my sister more than I fear him.

I am not a Huguenot, but no more am I an ass.

If the pope has too much of his nonsense, I will myself take Margot by the hand and carry her off to be married in open conventicle." Toligny, for his part, was so pleased with the measures that Charles IX.

had taken in favor of the Low Countries in their quarrels with Philip II., and so confident himself of his influence over the king, that when Tavannes was complaining in his presence "that the vanquished should make laws for the victors," Coligny said to his face, "Whoever is not for war with Spain is not a good Frenchman, and has the red cross inside him." The Catholics were getting alarmed and irritated.